Осень (Autumn) by Yevgeny Yevtushenko

Within me is an autumn season.

There is transparency and coolness

Sadness, but not desolation,

And I am humble, full of goodness.

.

And if sometimes I storm aloud

Then I storm, to shed my leaves:

And the thought comes, simply, sadly,

That to storm is not what is needed.

.

The main thing is to learn to see

Myself and the world of toil and torment

In autumnal nakedness

When you and the world become transparent.

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Insight is the child of silence.

No matter if we make no tumult:

We must calmly shed all noise

In the name of the new leaves.

.

Something, certainly, has happened:

Only on silence I rely

Where the leaves, piling on each other,

Are silently becoming soil.

.

And you see all, as from some height,

When you dare cast your leaves in time

And inner autumn, without passion,

Touches your brow with airy fingers.

.

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by Евгений Александрович Евтушенко

Yevgeny Aleksandrovich Yevtushenko

(1965)

translation by J R Rowland

Alexei Simonov, the son of the poet Konstantin Simonov, recites the poem.

Beneath is the original version the poem in Cyrillic.

.

Осень

Внутри меня осенняя пора.

Внутри меня прозрачно прохладно,

и мне печально и, но не безотрадно,

и полон я смиренья и добра.

.

А если я бушую иногда.

то это я бушую, облетая,

и мысль приходит, грустная, простая,

что бушевать – не главная нужда.

.

А главная нужда – чтоб удалось

себя и мир борьбы и потрясений

увидеть в обнаженности осенней,

когда и ты и мир видны насквозь.

.

Прозренья – это дети тишины.

Не страшно, если шумно не бушуем.

Спокойно сбросить все, что было шумом,

во имя новых листьев мы должны.

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Случилось что-то, видимо, со мной,

и лишь на тишину я полагаюсь,

где листья, друг на друга налагаясь,

неслышимо становятся землей.

.

И видишь все, как с некой высоты,

когда сумеешь к сроку листья сбросить,

когда бесстрастно внутренняя осень

кладет на лоб воздушные персты.

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Where Cars Cannot Come by Cyril Jones

Where cars cannot come

Is where I would go;

Away from the drum

Of their cyclic agenda

So you cannot remember

The vision you know.

.

I walk off the highways

And into the lanes;

To recall the memories

With wind my companion

With sun as my champion

To listen to all, of natures refrains.

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The rustle of long grass,

The wild whining trees,

A tune, on the edge of glass

Strikes the first chord,

A bloodthirsty sword.

To deep in the wood now, for any reprieve.

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A flash of the sun

On the edge of the water,

Like the startling fun

Contained in her smile

And roasted by guile

I saw, Neptunes daughter.

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I cannot go on now,

Where cars cannot come,

But I renew the vow

To do what is needed

And quietly unheeded

I take out the gun.

.

For of all that is troubling me

This now is the sum,

That a sound greater, considerably,

Reside in this lane

And nothing exists, to blot out it’s pain;

Where cars cannot come,

… Is my heart

… Is my brain.

.

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By Cyril Jones